


So You Want to be a Person of Assorted Magic-Wielding Profession?

by Goonlalagoon



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Going to be updated sporadically and sprawlingly, Set post Shepherd's Crown and Games Wizards Play, Someone on the YW slack mentioned the idea of a Discworld/YW crossover, YW/Discworld crossover, and here we are, i.e. I haven't really got a plot so this is going to just be whatever scenes come to mind, so not spoiler free zones, that boiled down to Tiffany and Nita meet and kick ass
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-07-07 20:48:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19857808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goonlalagoon/pseuds/Goonlalagoon
Summary: It was a while before Nita realised she was no longer in the library - at least, not the library she should be in.Later, when she explained this moment of realisation to anyone, she would always feel faintly foolish when she explained that she actually only noticed because an orangutan knuckled past at high speed.(A YW/Discworld crossover fic)





	1. Words have power

**Author's Note:**

> Ages back, someone in the YW slack group suggested the concept of a Young Wizards/Discworld crossover, predominantly so that Nita and Tiff could meet and generally kick ass.
> 
> I promptly wrote three and a bit scenes and then forgot about it until now so uh…have the start of a fic that will definitely have two more installments and probably more at some point?

Words have power. This is a well known fact across the universe, and those of a Wizardly persuasion know it rather more literally than most (1). Regrettably, despite first hand knowledge of the power of the written word and a tendency to love books or other collections of words, few have given much thought to the effects of jamming hundreds of pages full of writing in to a confined space.

  
Words have power…

  
Nita Callahan wasn’t paying much attention to where she was going, because she had her chin propped on top of a pile of books for re-shelving and couldn’t see her feet. Her attention was fixed on the shelves and neat rows of colourful book spines either side of her, looking for the right place for the book on top of her pile. Well, mostly fixed.  
  
  
The rest of her attention was on the conversation she was having with Kit, her Wizardly partner, closest friend and boyfriend, who was bored to death in the office he’d been stuck in for his work experience.  
 _Ugh, why are we doing this again…?_  
School policy. Aren’t you supposed to be working?  
On what? My pinball score? How very productive. I could be doing something useful right now, Neets! Nita rolled her eyes to herself, amused. She had to admit that she shared some of his frustration. When you spent most of your spare time, and some of the time you were supposed to be doing other things with like school and homework, on the full-time job of slowing the heat death of the universe, a week of mandatory work experience felt just a little pointless.

  
Not least because you knew you could actually be working on, say, developing a spell matrix to filter air pollution out of the New York Metropolitan area.

  
It hadn’t helped that both of them had forgotten about the forms until the morning they were due thanks to an emergency Errantry (2). Nita had gotten lucky. The old library near her house was an old haunt, and the librarian had been both amused and pleased to offer her a week’s placement for the start of the summer at very short notice. Kit had overslept and hadn’t managed to get anything arranged, so had been assigned somewhere thanks to a volunteer parent.

  
 _Hey, I_ did s _ay I could ask my dad for you._  
 _I know…but I figured it’d be too close to asking your family, and then I’d just’ve been in trouble for taking the cop out option…_  
 _It would have been the cop-out option._  
He snickered, and Nita tripped, books scattering over the floor.  
“Ow. Well, that was totally my fault.”  
 _Neets? Nita! You okay?_  
 _Yeah, yeah…just fell. Wasn’t looking where I was going._ She rubbed her knee ruefully. That was going to bruise, she could tell. _Look, I actually do need to work. See you later?_  
 _Dinner at mine? Mom’s doing the chicken thing._  
 _This day is looking up! Enjoy pinball._  
She scrabbled for the dropped books, putting them back into their alphabetised pile and scowling when she realised she must’ve gotten one out of order - she’d already shelved what she thought were the only two ‘Bs’ for the afternoon.   
Oh well…I’ll stick it at the bottom and just shelve it on my way back to the front desk.   
  
She continued on her way, trying to pay more attention to where she was putting her feet while also scanning her pile of books for any other missed letters. It was therefore a while before Nita realised she was no longer in the library - at least, not the library she should be in.   
  
Later, when she explained this moment of realisation to anyone, she would always feel faintly foolish when she explained that she actually only noticed because an orangutan knuckled past at high speed.

  
*****  
  
(1) ’Words’ being the local closest analogue for ‘modules of expression formulated such that, when applied enactively, can alter the universe - or at least small, localised and amenable parties thereof’  
(2) All errantries are emergencies, some are just more of an emergency than others. Nita had over the years developed an internal meter that rescaled this from ‘minor problem’ to ‘literal end of the world’ (3)  
(3) In practical terms, this coding actually ran from ‘ugh I still have to study for that math test’ to ‘even dad says I don’t have to do my homework after this’


	2. Chapter 2

In the dark ocean of space, zoom in on a drifting star…closer, until you can see it orbiting a green and blue disc, balanced on the back of a turtle via four elephants.

Zoom in, closer, on a green patch, rolling hills dotted with sheep…

Closer, on a little farmhouse…closer still, until you stand in a plain, functional but homely kitchen, where a little girl with brown hair is peering curiously at a bookshelf…

Tiffany Aching, age 9 and four fifths, was a voracious reader. Unfortunately, there were only four books at the Home Farm, which was why she knew the word ‘voracious’ at all - one of them was a dictionary, and she had read it all the way through. 

But this lunchtime, there was a new book on the shelf. Cautiously, Tiffany reached for it, eyes fixed on the gold lettering along the spine.

_So you want to be a Witch_ _…  
_

That was all in the past, now.

She still had the book, though 

Tiffany’s Manual was, in a word, battered. There was sheep’s wool caught in several pages and a dent in one corner, but she was oddly proud of this. It showed she was a working witch. Indeed, she was generally a very _over_ -worked witch, even having handed the Lancre holding over to Gregory some weeks ago.

She couldn’t help feeling as though since Granny Weatherwax had died they were all more over-worked than had been usual. Of course, Granny had been _the_ Witch, but even so, Tiffany had a Bad Feeling About This, so she was down in the Home Farm Dairy, making cheese. This gave her something to do with her hands, so that the rest of her could get on with thinking.

With dark forebodings and her mind half on a near-fought war, it is of little surprise that when Tiffany heard her mother shriek in alarm, she ran for the door on high alert. 

There was a stranger in their kitchen. This in itself was unusual, the Chalk being the sort of place where everyone knew everyone else’s great grandparents, but this… _girl_? _.._ was particularly strange, even for a stranger. For a start, she was wearing trousers. 

She had a top with bright writing on it, and was clutching a pile of books in one arm. The other arm had vanished up to the elbow in mid air, which in Tiffany’s professional opinion was a) magic, b) not _witch_ magic, and c) not involving enough sparkles and colourful smoke for an enchantress, which led quite logically* to d) _not_ another _Faerie invasion_ _…  
_

Tiffany’s arm reacted quite independently of this thought process, so by the time item d) had been reached it was already swinging, the dull grey gleam of her mother’s frying pan arcing through the air like the retribution of a particularly domestic god. 

The figure crumpled to the floor, scattering books. Tiffany grimaced with a bibliophile’s priorities, until her eyes fixed on the single book clutched in the recently invisible hand.

_So you want to be a Wizard?_

Tiffany groaned, and set to work with the first fundamental skill of witchcraft: first aid.

* And quite incorrectly


	3. Chapter 3

When Kit’s latest message to Nita pinged straight back to him like the ricocheting pinballs on his screen, he assumed she’d asked Bobo to hold all calls, either to make herself concentrate or to force him to focus.  
  
Though given he was, as threatened, currently focused on his pinball score he suspected that if the latter it wasn’t having quite the effect she was going for.  
  
Half an hour later, his phone rang.  
“Kit, where the hell is Nita?”  
“Dairine? Uh…she’s probably still at the library, isn’t she? She doesn’t finish until five.”  
“Nope. She _should_ be, but we got a call to say she vanished earlier this afternoon. I can’t reach her at all.”  
“What?” Kit fumbled for his manual, ignoring the looks he was getting from his temporary coworkers, planning to send Nita an urgent message, and froze.  
  
_Status: On Errantry._  
  
_Out of ambit._  
_Please try again later_  
  
The library held no helpful clues. The floor remembered being walked on, sure, and the books in the fantasy section were still preening at the sheer loving appreciation that had recently flown over them, but that was it. Usually, Kit wouldn’t be _too_ worried at this stage - Nita was perfectly capable of looking out for herself - but even if caught up in an urgent situation Nita would ask Bobo to text her dad to limit _his_ worrying.  
  
The manual wouldn’t even give a basic precis for whatever mission Nita had found herself on. Slipping out of the library to head home, resigned to waiting and worrying until he had a better idea, Kit paused to pet a stray dog.  
"Don’t suppose you’ve seen a girl my age with brown hair around, huh?" He muttered in the Speech as he scratched behind the mongerel's ears.  
He straightened up quickly as his manual beeped, alerting him to an incoming call from a very frazzled Tom.  
“Yeah, there’s nothing at the library.”  
“We can’t access any more information this end either.” Tom sounded frustrated; as the local Senior, he should be able to access the details of interventions that any of the wizards in his jurisdiction were sent on, even if he hadn’t been made aware of the assignment initially.  
“The gate floats in and out.” The words were out of Kit’s mouth before he was done thinking them. “It’s closed up for now.”  
“…what? Kit, what was that?” A very good question, Kit thought, puzzled. It hadn’t been _his_ idea, he was sure, so what had put it in his head?  
“Have you seen a brown haired girl? What a ninny am I, forgetting that dogs are colourblind.”  
  
Kid made a sound akin to the vocal equivalent of a key-smash, almost dropping his manual as he stared at the dog.  
“Kit! Are you alright?”  
“A dog just spoke to me.”  
“Kit, your dog used to ask you the meaning of life to get dog biscuits out of-”  
“No,” interrupted Kit, “I don’t mean in the Speech or in Canine. I mean _the dog just spoke to me in English._ ”  
  
“Woof?” Said Gaspode.


End file.
